


Twin Shattered Hearts

by NishaGreyjoy



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 15:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18182147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NishaGreyjoy/pseuds/NishaGreyjoy
Summary: Trapped in relationships with a madman, their only hope is each other.





	Twin Shattered Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all. I'm a big fan of Nisha and Tim as a couple, so I've started writing of them. This fic starts off about a year before the events of Borderlands 2, and works its way up to the game's setting. Hope you all like it!

A fuckup. That’s what she was. Not the Sheriff of Lynchwood. Not the Lawbringer. Not even Nisha. Just a fuckup. A fuckup, pretending to be better than the stupid piece of shit she really was. What the hell made her think she was any different, anyway? Her whole life was a series of fuckups. She lurched like a stumbling drunk from one stupid decision to the next, leaving other, better people to pay for her idiocy and pick up whatever pieces were left. That was who she was. That was her life. She hadn’t been successful – just lucky in that no one had noticed. But now, under the microscope, with people actually watching, her true self was exposed. Just a stupid, stupid fuckup.

“Nisha!”

Jack’s admonishment brought her back into the present with a jolt. She had been summoned to Jack’s office to discuss her latest fuckup, her latest in a whole string of them, and she sat in a lone chair in front of his desk. Jack was staring at her, his gaze piercing. There was a time, once long ago, when she’d stare right back at him, all fire and sass, proudly defiant, daring him to say something. But not today. Today, crushed by the weight of her failure, she could barely meet that gaze. The shame was simply too great.

“Were you paying attention?”

“Uh… well I... uh…”

“Uh… I… Uh…” Jack mimicked her. He shook his head. “You weren’t were you? Of course not. You weren’t then either!”

“No, I mean… I was just thinkin’.”

Jack scoffed. “Oh, so *now* you’re thinking? Bit late for that now, isn’t it? You should have been ‘thinking’ back then. Then you wouldn’t be in this shape.” 

Normally anyone who spoke that way would be on the receiving end of some serious pain. She did not take kindly to being yelled at or talked down to, and more than one person who berated her had ended up with a broken nose for their trouble. But she could not take issue with someone being right. How could she ever hit anyone for being right? And Jack was right. Jack was always right. So…

“Sorry…” she said quietly.

“Sorry.” He mocked her. “Will sorry bring back all those people?”

She hesitated.

“Will it?!”

She hung her head. “No…” she said softly.

“No,” he said angrily. “It won’t!”

She said nothing. She had nothing to say. He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Now. Tell me again what happened.”

She winced and looked back at him. “It’s all in the report.”

He smirked. “I’m an auditory learner.”

“Jack…” she begged. She would not normally beg. Not her. She could take almost anything. But she couldn’t take being forced to relive what happened.

His smile vanished, replaced by an expression of fury. “Don’t give me that ‘Jack’ crap! You want to act like you’re put upon?! After what you did?!”

She shook her head frantically. “N… no… I mean…”

“Dozens of people are dead, all because of you! And you want to sit here and act like you’re the victim in all of this!”

He was right again, of course. She had gotten a lot of good people killed through her own ineptness. And yet there she was, begging and pleading and making all about her own stupid self. She hung her head again, disgusted at her own selfishness.

“Sorry…” she said again, loathing herself.

“Tell me everything. Now.”

She swallowed and managed to meet his accusing gaze. His eyes bored into hers. She remembered a woman, once, who’d have stared him down. But that woman had long since vanished.

“Well?!”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “I…”

“A festival,” Jack said bluntly. “You decided to approve a street festival.”

“It just seemed like such a little thing! I mean, it was close up on the anniversary of me gettin’ the town anyway and I got the request from the citizens and I thought… I mean…”

“Yes?” Jack’s voice was very low, laced with contempt.

“I thought… they deserved to have a little fun was all.”

“Fun.” Jack said the word slowly, deliberately. “Fun.” His stare pierced her. “Is that what your job is now, Nisha? To indulge the whims of a bunch of disgusting low-lives barely one step above bandits? Is that why I put you there? To make sure everyone has…?” He said the next word in snotty tone. “…fun?”

Nisha opened her mouth, but Jack overrode her objections. “You losing your touch, Nish’? Is that what this is about? Deciding to use honey over vinegar? Can’t beat the bandits the normal way so you’re putting the kid gloves on now?”

If anyone else had accused her of being anything less than badass, she’d have shot them on the spot. But Jack was not just anyone else, and she couldn’t let that go uncontested. “N… no, it isn’t like that!” she protested, worried deep down inside that it was exactly like that. “It’s just… the miners there, they work real hard and I figured… I figured if I gave em a little reward, like a fun time, make em a bit happy for once…”

“They won’t want to work at all! I know how they are. Give them a centimeter and they’ll take a kilometer off your hands! You slacken the reigns for just an instant, you lose control! The miserable one, they’re the hard workers, because they know what’ll happen if they don’t! Making them happy…” he shook his head, disgusted. “Make them happy, you get this!”

She said nothing.

“So. Nisha. Keep talking. How did ‘making them happy’ work out?”

She swallowed. Why wouldn’t he let it go? “Well, I approved it.”

“You didn’t have any… misgivings?”

She bit her lip. She HAD had misgivings. Nothing specific, but some inner instinct had told her not to approve this request, that if she approved it she’d regret it. But she wanted to approve it. Despite her reputation as a hardass, deep down inside Nisha truly did care about the town of Lynchwood. She took her job as Sheriff very seriously, and if her justice was harsh, it was only because the city was infested with criminals and bandits who needed a strong hand to keep them in line. But that didn’t mean the city shouldn’t also be a nice place for those who did mind her laws, who kept their heads down and didn’t make trouble. Certainly they deserved something as well. That wasn’t wrong, was it?

So she approved it. She hadn’t listened to herself. And now this…

“A… few. Like Slab attacks. But I took care of that!” she continued hastily, eager to show him she wasn’t completely inept. “I ringed the town with security! No Slab would have been able to get in!”

“How very clever,” Jack said drily. He began a slow clap. “Nisha Kadam, security expert. All righhhhhht let’s hear it for her.”

“Jack…” Nisha’s voice was wavering. She was completely inept, after all. But she couldn’t let him know that! Why wouldn’t he let it go?!

“No, no. You absolutely did the right thing. You took *every* precaution. Oh… wait.” He looked up, feigning surprise. “You DID forget something, didn’t you? What was it… ohhhh yeah. You forgot about security INSIDE the town, didn’t you?”

She hung her head. The truth was that she hadn’t enough people to cover everything. She had been seriously concerned about security, but she had swallowed her fears because she had so wanted the town to be happy for once, just this once.

“I thought… if everyone was havin’ fun that…”

“That what?! They’d stop being the bandit pieces of shit they are? That they’d suddenly spontaneously become model citizens?” He spat. “You know them better than that. They’re bandits, every one of them! You don’t reason with bandits! You don’t indulge them. You don’t ‘make them happy.’ You hang them! You shoot them! You *exterminate* them! Otherwise you have what happened! Tell me what DID happen.”

“Please, Jack.” The memory still hurt. Why wouldn’t he understand that? Didn’t he understand that? It hurt! It hurt knowing she was incompetent. It hurt knowing her judgment was so poor. It hurt knowing she was a bumbling fool who never should have gotten the job as Sheriff. Didn’t he see that?! It HURT!

He saw it. And he didn’t care. “PUH-LEASE, JACK!” He mocked her. “Oh PLEASE don’t make me take responsibility for my actions. Oh PLEASE let me forget all about how badly I screwed up. Oh PLEASE let me slink away without having learned anything.” He snorted, disgusted. “Your request for ‘please’ is denied at this time. Please proceed.”

Again, he was right, she thought miserably. She really was a disgusting human being. So many people were dead because of her. And she couldn’t even do them the honor of trying to remember them? She couldn’t even make herself talk about them one last time? How could she be such a piece of shit? She took a deep breath, and resolved to at least TRY to be a halfway honorable person.

“It… it started out nice at first.” It had, too. For the first three or four hours it went wonderfully. People were mingling, talking, laughing. She had even paid for a band to come and play some cheerful tunes to liven the mood, and the music filled the air. She remembered how pleased with herself she had been. She had stood out on her balcony, watching the festival in the distance, happy that for once she had been able to give something back. And then the shooting had started…

“And then?” The words were said slowly.

“And then…” she swallowed. She hadn’t known what happened at the time. She’d had to piece it all together later from the survivors, and draw what conclusions she could from the ‘physical evidence.’

“Some… some people from a bandit gang had gotten in.” She swallowed again. “Maybe they just wanted to have a good time themselves, I dunno...”

Jack snorted. “Making excuses for bandits now, are we?” He shook his head again. “You really are something, Nish’.” He sighed. “Keep going, Nisha. Tell me all about these gangsters.”

“They… they saw some other bandits… from a rival gang. Maybe the other gang saw them too, I dunno. And then… and then...” She shut her eyes, trying to will the memory away. It was all coming back to her now. Everything. For an instant, she hadn’t been sure what she’d heard. Then her mind had understood. Gunfire. At first she’d thought the Slabs were attacking. Then she’d realized where the gunfire was coming from. No, she had thought. No, no!

“They… they started shootin’. At eachother.”

“Oh, and here I thought everyone had succumbed to a bad batch of party punch.” He snorted. “And how did you react, Sheriff, to this most unexpected development?”

Not well. She had actually panicked at first, as it sunk in just what was happening, the realization that people would die, were dying, because of her. Because of her decision, because of her trying to do right by her town. It took her several minutes to calm down, and her first orders had been confused and unclear as she tried to pull together a relief force. She’d had men and women at the station, but they were in reserve to reinforce the town’s defenses in case the Slabs attacked in strength. She’d hesitated, desperately debating whether to take them and leave the perimeters of the town vulnerable, not to mention the station. They were under strength in any case. Finally, she’d decided to take half of them and after hastily delegating matters to Winger, she set off. “I got there as soon as I could.”

“And how soon was that?”

Longer than it should have been. She remembered her heart racing as the armored vehicles sped to the center of the town. It was easy going at first – she’d insisted that all roads aside from the main street, where the festival took place, were to be kept clear. But as she got closer, the roads were becoming crowded with people fleeing. Finally, she’d ditched her vehicles and ran the last kilometer, but with everyone running the opposite direction, her pace had slowed even further and meanwhile the shooting was just going on and on and on… “I was able to get there eventually.”

“Eventually,” he sneered. “And what did you find when you got there ‘eventually’?”

Nisha shut her eyes. The answer was a nightmare. She had rounded the corner and all at once there it was before her. Two groups of bandits, perhaps three dozen each. She doubted they’d started off that strong. More likely that both of them had called in backup. Now they were blazing away at eachother with everything they had. Spent cartridges clinked at their feet. And between them, strewn everywhere, were the bodies. Dozens of them. In their eagerness to wipe eachother out, the bandits had not cared who was caught in the crossfire, and simply shot through anybody in their way. They lay there, sprawled, two or three corpses high in some places. Men, women, children, young and old. Some were still alive, writhing and moaning, some would never rise again. She looked up at Jack, shaking her head. “Just… madness.”

He snorted again. “And how did you deal with it?”

The shock lasted a few seconds, then she had sprung into action… or tried to. As soon as she opened up on them, the civilians off to the side panicked anew. They ran in all directions to escape this new front of gunfire, getting in her way as she tried to aim. She had difficulty getting a clear shot, but the bandits had no such scruples, and sprayed fire in her direction regardless of the people between the two groups, and still more townspeople – her townspeople – were mown down.

She straightened up, trying to show a sense of pride that wasn’t there. “I dealt with it. Killed em all!” She said it loudly, too loudly. Jack just scoffed.

“Every least one, huh? How many of your own did you lose?”

“Not one,” she said, her pride beginning to seep back. If nothing else, she was a damn good leader.

“And how many… civilians died?”

She visibly stiffened. Why did he have to ask? She’d taken care of the problem. Wasn’t that enough? She stared at him, the sudden modicum of pride giving her the strength to finally talk back.

“What do you care? They’re all the same to you. Only thing you care about is the goddamn mine!”

For a second, she felt good about herself. Maybe that’d get him off her back. Maybe she wasn’t the weakling she dreaded she really was. Maybe she had it in her to push back…

“Good question, what do I care? Well, it so happens that the people in your town are working my mine, so I have a very personal interest in knowing how many of those people are… out of action? A bigger interest than you it seems. Which isn’t good, considering that YOU’RE the one who’s supposed to care, being Sheriff and all.”

Nisha winced, her backbone sagging as her pride shriveled away inside. Jack noticed it and smiled.

“Did you care, Nish’? Did you care when you saw all those bodies, all the people killed because of you?”

She shut her eyes, trying to will the memory away. “I… did care!”

“Then why are you asking me if I care? I just want a bodycount! I just want to know how badly you screwed up. This is YOUR screwup, Nisha, you realize that, right? Their blood is on YOUR hands, not mine.”

It was true, she thought. It was all her fault. She had signed off on the festival, despite her misgivings, knowing what could happen, knowing the risks, because she had just wanted people to be happy for once…

“I just thought…”

Jack sighed. “You thought, you thought, you thought. Maybe you should be CEO, Nisha, since you have all these great ideas. Maybe I should resign, let you have a crack at it. Sure all the slackers and cheats and layabouts in this company would love you trying to ‘make them happy.’ Nisha Kadam, she’ll kill you with kindness.”

“Jack…” Nisha was pleading now.

“She really will too…” Jack continued, paying her no mind. “You really oughta be proud, Nish’. It’s a mark of how dangerous you are. You should have that as like a motto or something. Nisha Kadam, she’s so dangerous even her kindness kills…”

“Jack, stop…” She was almost crying.

“Well maybe she’s not so kind, because when her kindness DOES kill, she can’t really be bothered to take note. She can’t even come up with a number. After all that violence, all those bodies and she just blows it off…”

She shut her eyes, her hands over her ears. She had seen many horrible things throughout her life. But nothing could have prepared her for the sight of a firefight in a crowded area. They lay two or three deep, tangled amidst eachother – men, women and children – the very people she had sworn to protect. Their dead eyes stared up at her accusingly, the people she had tried to make happy and now they were all dead all dead all because of her her fault her fault her fault…

And Nisha started crying. She hung her head in her hands, her hat falling off. She sobbed, the guilt eating her up inside, the guilt of every man, women and child who had trusted her to keep them safe, only to die because of her fuckup. And she couldn’t even be bothered to say how many died… Jack was right, she was a selfish, selfish, horrible person. She wasn’t fit to be Sheriff. She wasn’t fit to be anything. She should just crawl under a rock and die and then no one would ever have to worry about her getting them killed.

“Eighty-seven…” she choked out.

“Eighty-seven what?” Jack’s voice was filled with contempt.

“Civilians…” Her civilians. Her people. Her bodies. Her fault.

“Eighty-seven civilians. Jeez, ‘Nish. Here I was thinking a couple dozen, tops. Eighty-seven.” He whistled. “Man, that’s rough. Talk about screwing up.”

“Stop it,” she sobbed.

“Stop it…” he mocked her. “There you go again, ducking responsibility. Well, not on my watch.” He stared at her. “You DO realize that you’re the one at fault, right? Like, I’m not sure you grasp that. But you do, don’t you?”

She buried her face deeper into her hands. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?!

“…don’t you?”

“YES!” She screamed, sobbing, hoping the admission would get him to leave her alone. “Yes… it WAS my fault, I approved it, I know I shouldn’t but I did and now everyone’s dead and it’s all… oh god, it’s all… because of me! ALL BECAUSE OF ME!” She said nothing more, just sobbed harder, the guilt chewing her up inside.

Jack smirked. “Well well, so you CAN take responsibility after all. Hell, maybe you ARE suited for the Sheriff’s job after all. Of course, it’s just a start, but keep it up, Nish’. One step at a time as they say.”

She said nothing, continuing to cry. Jack said nothing for a time, then finally sighed.

“Oh stop that. Enough with the melodramatics.” When she tried to stop, but couldn’t, he sighed again. “Seriously, Nisha, stop it. You’re Nisha Kadam, the Lawbringer, toughest gun in the galaxy, remember? Start acting like it.”

He was right. He was always so very right. She was twenty-seven years old, and she was crying like an infant. Ashamed of herself, she managed to lift her head up and get herself under control.

Jack suddenly smiled. “After all, what’s done is done, right? Everyone makes mistakes… granted most of them are not as stupid as yours, but hey, you’ve admitted it, that’s the important part. So… what have we learned?”

Her mind processed what he’d asked, and she realized a response was expected.

“Make better security preparations,” she said numbly.

Jack sighed. “Well, that’s kinda Sheriff 101 stuff, but hey, I’ll take it. Like I said, one step at a time.” 

She said nothing, too drained to respond. She just stared blankly at the floor.

Jack sat back in his chair. “Well, that about settles it,” he said with a smile. “I got all the info I need. You look rough, Nish’. You oughta go and take a nap or something.”

That meant it was time for her to go. Mutely, she rose, tears still streaming down her face. She picked up her hat and put it on. There was a time she would have tilted it rakishly and strode out confidently… now she simply slunk out, her shoulders slouched, the shame consuming her and the terror that he’d remember some other way she’d fucked up and call her back and then put her through this all over again… and it wasn’t until the doors closed shut behind her that she breathed a sigh of relief.

It was always like this, and every time was worse than the last. She’d fuck up somehow, and she’d be summoned up to Helios to explain herself. Early on she could simply do the whole thing over Echo… but later, as her mistakes mounted, Jack had decided he liked in-person sessions better. So she’d be called up and he’d rake her over the coals, picking apart her actions and making her feel absolutely horrible. She used to talk back to him, yell at him, even threaten him a bit… but as time passed and her unfitness for the job of Sheriff became more and more apparent, her attitude dropped, until finally she barely talked back at all unless it was to defend herself, and even that was happening less and less, until she began agreeing to whatever his assessment of her was simply to get him to back off.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was wrong about her.

She steadied herself against the wall, tears silently falling to the floor. She couldn’t let the people out there see her like this. She was Nisha Kadam, the Lawbringer, the toughest gun in the galaxy. She couldn’t let them see what Jack did to her.

She couldn’t let them see her crying.

She leaned against the wall, continuing to cry silently, until finally the tears stopped falling. With an effort, she straightened up and composed herself. She reached up, her hand shaking, and tilted her hat forward. She took a deep breath. Then she took a step, then another, falling into the practiced stride that projected the aura of confidence and control that hid her weaknesses from the world… but not from herself.

She entered the reception area, and was surprised to see Timothy sitting there, clearly waiting to be called in. From the look on his face, he wasn’t expecting to have a fun time either. She took a deep breath and walked towards him.

He smiled slightly as she approached. “Hey, Nisha.”

“Hey yourself.” She smiled back. They weren’t exactly close. Indeed, they barely saw each other. She spent most of her time in Lynchwood. Running the town was a full-time job, and she very rarely left unless it was to see Jack. Tim, on the other hand, spent most of his time on Helios. Jack liked to keep his body double close, though at times he’d send him out on ‘double detail.’ So the two of them rarely had a chance to meet. But they were casual friends, and always exchanged pleasantries whenever they saw each other.

“How things shakin’, handsome?” She liked to call him that. She enjoyed teasing him, and it was so easy. It was cute, the way he’d always blush and stammer. But today it wasn’t having the desired effect.

“Eh…” he shrugged. “Probably not gonna be too good.”

“Oh yeah?”

He jerked his thumb in the direction of Jack’s office. “Your boyfriend wants to see me. Dunno what about. He’s always calling me in here to yell at me about something I’ve done or not done.” He snorted.

“Yeah, I know what ya mean,” Nisha said, shaking her head.

Tim seemed to pick up on her emotional state. Perhaps it was the fatigue in her voice. Perhaps her eyes were still red from the crying. Or perhaps it was the way she winced when he said the word ‘boyfriend,’ even though it was true. “You okay, Nisha?”

“Uh…” a slight look of panic crossed her face. She was used to hiding her emotions behind a calm façade, but the session with Jack had caused the mask to slip. “I’m… I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Tim looked genuinely concerned, though why was beyond her. It wasn’t like she was worth worrying about. But then again, how would he know that? He saw her as she pretended to be. Strong, tough, hard-as-nails and taking no shit from anyone. He didn’t see the reality of the worthless piece of trash under the hat.

She smiled, masking her pain. “Yeah. Don’t worry ‘bout me, Tim. Really.”

Tim looked like he was going to say more, but then he was interrupted by the receptionist.

“Jack, Handsome Jack will see you now.”

They both snorted at that. Tim stood up. “Well, may as well get this over with.”

She smirked. “Good luck in there, kiddo.” Kiddo. In truth Tim was far from the kid she had first met on Helios. He was a Vault Hunter, a fighter, a man who had stood side by side with her on the battlefield. Yet despite everything they had been through together, there was a certain innocence in him that the even the past two years had not completely wiped out. And even though she was only a couple of years older, Nisha still thought of him as a kid.

“Will do,” he said, as he started walking towards the door to Jack’s office.

“Tim?” She called after him.

He turned to face her. “Yeah?”

She was no longer smiling. “I mean it. Take care of yourself in there.”

His eyes shifted downward for a second, before looking back up. He smiled, but there was a sadness to it. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, Nisha.” He mimicked her. “Really.”

He turned and continued walking towards the doors, which opened for him. Nisha watched him go, and only when the doors slid shut behind him, hiding him from her view, did she turned and start walking towards the exit.


End file.
